We somehow missed out on a few nuggets released over the summer time, not least this one by Utrecht-based three-piece Stillwave. Sounding initially as though it’s been drop-kicked from a late 70’s post-punk mix-tape, there’s more than enough of a beautified brooding bleakness attaching to ‘Rich Ones’ that would suggest it had spent its formative years donned in overcoats surveying the crushed landscapes of a North West England. There’s certainly a Factory vibe restlessly rippling in the mix that nods ever so obviously towards Joy Division. Spectral electronics, chilled tipped atmospherics and that sonorous croon, but then there’s a thaw, riffs splutter into stratospheric formations and something hymnal and hope-hooked parts the crestfallen malaise, a purposeful change in tide, a new found destination assuming quietly epic proportions much like a subdued Swimmer One, all said.
